The sustaining purpose of the Pain Research Group is to improve the quality of symptom management for cancer patients both in the United States and internationally, through a program of research, education, demonstration projects, policy development, and communication. The specific goal of our descriptive studies is to enhance the understanding of the prevalence, severity, and treatment of the symptoms experienced by cancer patients.

The Pain Research Group, founded by Charles Cleeland, PhD, is probably best known for interdisciplinary research focusing on cancer pain and its treatment. Its first efforts were to develop measures of cancer pain and its impact on patients. The Brief Pain Inventory© (BPI) was developed for the rapid and easy assessment of pain. The BPI has been used to document the proportion of cancer patients who experience pain severe enough to impair their function. To date, the BPI has been translated and validated in several languages. We have conducted studies of the prevalence and severity of cancer pain in China, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Recently, we have broadened the scope of our research to include studies of the prevalence, severity, and treatment of other symptoms experienced by cancer patients during all phases of their illness. We have developed two tools for rapid symptom assessment based on the BPI: The Brief Fatigue Inventory© for the assessment of fatigue, and The M. D. Anderson Symptom Inventory© for the assessment of multiple symptoms. Other current research projects include: survey and focus group studies to determine cancer patients' preferences related to symptom control, surveys of the attitudes of Latin American health professionals regarding end of life care, and a retrospective study of physicians' practice variations in pain control for patients at the end of life.